Richard Aregood: Journalistic GPS: How to navigate the slants behind the bylines

EDITORS, despite what writers say about them, are every journalist's best friends.

They save us, as much as they can, from making total fools of ourselves while at the same time making sure we stay grammatical and have facts to back up even our wildest assertions.

Michael Schefer has been my editor since I began writing this column. I've come to value his brains and collegiality, which have made me look smarter than I really am. He has accepted a buyout and will be leaving the Daily News. It's a big loss for the Daily News and for me.

Michael and I are not on the same page politically and won't be anytime soon. It's probably accurate to say that he's as far to the right as I am to the left, although neither of us is part of the loony fringe. In this age when so many people define themselves through the political fads that speak to them, he has been invaluable in making me actually think about what I might otherwise assume.

Last week, he called my attention to an item on the Fox News website about the Daily News and Will Bunch, its opinionated Attytood blogger. The point of the story was that Bunch, while covering the Occupy Wall Street protests, was also filing for Media Matters, which the reporter describes as an "anti-Fox News media group." The story is calmly written and thorough, although it doesn't really deal with the complicated ethical issues it seems to.

My first knee-jerk reaction is to note that the thoroughly besooted Fox pot is calling a smaller pot black, and that Media Matters could be seen as a valuable watchdog of many of Fox's wilder moments. After all, is there a mention of who is paying speaking fees to Fox News stars on its website, or a notation of the source of their remarkably similar talking points? If Bunch is reporting favorably on Occupy Wall Street through his Twitter feed, is that comparable to Fox News' virtually creating the tea party and sometimes even hosting its events?

But then I stopped to think about what exactly constitutes disclosure and how journalism depends on trust, at least partially, because I knew I'd soon be discussing these ideas with Michael.

I'm not much on conspiracy theories, believing that they are a lazy way for people to explain the inexplicable without challenging their own assumptions. I'm also a believer that a journalist can have opinions and express them clearly and loudly, as long as there is relevant disclosure.

Bunch identifies himself as having "a progressive point of view." His writing for the Daily News, as well as his books and his work for Media Matters, confirms this. As a reader, I know where Bunch is coming from, just as I know where Sean Hannity is coming from. That's good enough for me.

There is, however, another question, one that FoxNews.com only hinted at. Can a reporter have opinions, strong ones, and still be credible on hard news? I believe that's possible, and know that Bunch knows the difference.

Long ago, I was a Daily News reporter and the Philadelphia correspondent for the National Enquirer, reporting mostly about medical and religious issues. The Enquirer editors were tough, smart and demanding, and I filed impeccable, even-handed notes, which were then turned over to a wild-eyed Aussie rewrite man who souped up the stories beyond recognition. This does not mean that I personally believed in alien abductions or that I shared the politics of Generoso Pope, the owner I never met. It was honest work, for which I was paid.

Readers of the National Enquirer, the New York Times, the Daily News and the viewers of Fox News have their own responsibility to understand that people can be wrong without being dishonest or in the bag to the Koch brothers or George Soros.

I know where Fox News stands. I know where Bunch stands. That's good enough for me. I don't need for every byline to include a detailed political biography.

FoxNews.com quotes a memo from Daily News editor Larry Platt: "You should not be afraid to have a point of view about what you report . . . . You will be explicit adjudicators of factual disputes, and you'll be free to draw conclusions from your reporting."

It was my plan to write this time about the odd twist on tabloid style that the recent "Sexy Singles" front page represents, and about the new Saturday sports paper, but my editor distracted me.

Next time.

And thanks, Michael.